


No One Else

by nowordswriter (eloquentelegance)



Series: Taming Pitch [2]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-18
Updated: 2013-01-18
Packaged: 2017-11-25 23:33:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/644122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eloquentelegance/pseuds/nowordswriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pitch has tried everything to scare the boy away. But he just keeps coming back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No One Else

"Nice place you got here. Really... uh, neat?"

"What are you still doing here? Did I not tell you to leave?"

"I mean I didn't have any expectations or anything. But, this isn't it."

"I believe there was even an epic battle of sorts?"

"Nothing screams 'Boogieman' to me. Where are the lava pits? The torture chambers? The screaming of the damned?"

"I'm sorry. I think you have me confused with someone else."

"There's nothing here! You don't even have chairs!"

"Oh the horror. No chairs. What is this world coming to."

"I can spruce it up! I'm pretty handy with ice."

"I think you've done enough. Or do you not recall the giant spear of ice jutting out of my parlor? You tried to skewer me with it?"

Jack turns and flashes him a wry smile. "You don't have a parlor."

"Aha! So he can hear me!" Pitch throws up his hands. "And here I thought you'd forgotten all about me!"

"Don't be so dramatic." Jack shakes his head, rolling his eyes. "I could never forget you, Boogieman."

Pitch scowls, narrowing his gaze as the little imp strutted about his home. The accursed child looked like he owned the place. There is a skip in his step and a dare in his smile. Pitch wants nothing more than to bash his head against the walls, dash his brains across the floor. He grits his teeth and does nothing.

So it has come to this. The once feared and powerful Nightmare King reduced to hiding under beds and squeezing into closets, not even capable of scaring away pesky winter sprites. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

After their first meeting, the frostling bid a hasty retreat. All it took was a few shadows, an echo of a scream, to send him running. Child's play, really. Pitch thought he'd seen the last of the sprite. But in allowing the boy to escape, he carelessly allowed the boy to find the only physical entrance. For the way in is the way out and one night, no more special than any other night, Pitch found himself host once more to one Jack Frost.

The second meeting went a bit better than the first. But only because the second meeting lasted a mere half minute. Pitch had appeared at him home, as per usual, and found Jack perched on a stalagtite. The boy had the gall to wave at him. 

"Hello, Pitch. I am here." He chirped.

"You!" Pitch cried, conjuring a wreath of shadows.

"Goodbye, Pitch. I am gone." And with a peppy salute, the boy summoned a blast of hoarfrost wind.

It sent Pitch reeling. By the time he gathered his wits, Jack was gone.

The third meeting lasted longer and went a little worse. There was an attempt at conversation. Or at least, Jack made small talk. Pitch just threatened him with torture and entrapment. He had half a mind to follow through, at least at the time. The boy had power and Pitch is many things, but blind he is not. There was a certain allure to the chill Jack sent skittering down his spine. He could find many a use for such a skill. But the sprite proved to be slippery as his elemental namesake and the mouthiest brat Pitch ever had the displeasure of meeting. He quickly abandoned all plots of enslavement. And with a well-timed screech, he drove the boy from his lair.

It was the sixth meeting when blows were first exchanged. Jack was no longer frightened by paltry parlor tricks or the occasional death threat. So, Pitch went for the jugular. He aimed for the private and the personal. He picked at Jack's fears, peeling away those scabbed over anxieties with sharpened nails. He split smiles open and lets the yellow terror ooze out. He draped the boy in dread, burying him in half-empty truths and half-filled lies. The sprite denied him at every turn. He screamed and shouted, stamping his feet with fists curled and grit teeth. But Pitch pushed and pushed hard. And all too quickly, the boy breaks.

The winterling unleashed a fury only hell hath known. And Pitch learned the truth. He learned that Jack was the shout before an avalanche. That he wore a mask of ice about to crack. That he hid a surging froth of fury behind a callous smirk. Pitch learned the winterling burns the way no winterling should burn. For the truth is, Pitch learned, Jack is a very angry boy. He is a snowball on the precipice of a cliff. All he needed is a push.

And oh, how Pitch had pushed.

They collided in a swirling mess of black and white. Frost swallowed shadows shrouded in hoarfrost. The resulting explosion shook Pitch's home, broke loose a few stalactites and gouged scars into the ground. But damn, if it wasn't the most fun Pitch had in over a century. It was a pity, he thought then, that the boy would surely leave and never return. Surely, he thought then, a battle of that ilk would keep the boy permanently away. But the Pitch then was not the Pitch now. And the Pitch then did not know Jack Frost.

After only a few days, Pitch found himself entertaining the company of a certain winter sprite. Again. The boy just refused to leave him alone and it absolutely confounded him. At a complete and total loss, Pitch finally forced himself to ask the query that has plagued him since the boy first came back.

"Why?" He hissed through his teeth. "You are obviously not welcome here. Why do you insist on returning? For all that is sacred and holy, I am the Boogieman! Why me?"

And Jack curled his lips, but it wasn't a smile. It broke around the corners and it failed to reach his eyes. He looked away and spoke so softly, Pitch nearly didn't hear.

"There's no one else."

It was the bald-faced truth, stripped bare of any mask or pretenses. It was reality summed up in four short words. For this is the truth, their kind have dwindled to an echo of their former glory. Their world once teemed with sprites and spirits and monsters and magic. Now, they were all gone. For this is the truth, Jack Frost is an enigma. A winterling born when all before him were dead or dying. There are a precious few Jack could meet, and an even smaller few who could give him the time of day. There is no one else.

Pitch thought, if he had a heart, it would break itself in two. But pity would garner him no blessings. The sprite proved to be nothing more than a nuisance, an impediment. Pitch had a throne to reclaim. He cannot waste his time on lonely children crying for attention. 

And now, he sits, stewing - watching the sprite strut about his home. He has long lost count the number of meetings since that fateful battle and subsequent aftermath. It could very well be the boy's twentieth visit. It is of little consequence. Pitch will rid himself of the pesky winter sprite, one way or another. Jack Frost will rue the day he ever met the Boogieman.


End file.
